I don't really know what you're saying here, David. Most novelists can't
write either, if you go by what is actually published and then consider
the probable enormous number of the unpublished, just as with poetry.
You don't really have to work so hard to write very bad prose. Whether
one has to know what an anacrusis is to write good poetry, considering
that as a term it applies to quantitative verse, not really to the
stressed verse of Germanic languages, is a moot point. If "banality
posing as poetry" killed the art, the art would have died a long time
ago. Consider the huge amounts of dull sententious plodfests written in
the 18th & 19th century in England alone. One might even be grateful for
the relative taciturnity of more recent poetasters. Catalexis doesn't
really Make much diff'rence, does it, Dave? But the real question is why
you spend time listening to people, who rather like M.Jourdain (it was
prose in his case), don't realize they're producing boring old iambic
pentameters a lot of the time anyway.
Cheers
Martin
David Bircumshaw wrote:
>I've become interested lately, as apart from being excruciatingly aware, of
>the laziness of poetry. Poetry, as an art, along with elements of visual
>arts, has become a last refuge of the bone-idle, at least, if you write a
>novel, or a play, you have to put your back into it, it takes work, poetry,
>although, because of its extremely primitive basics, can be like a
>five-minute-fix. This is not to say the withering and murderous demands that
>poetry as an art does exact, but there's kind of fuzzy notion arounmd that
>anyone can write poetry. No they can't, and what's more most poets most
>can't write it either (to order), or to acceptance. It comes when the gods
>say, and with an awful lot in the background support. This may sound rather
>elitist, it is, it also is very democratic: anyone can do, but most can't.
>
>The worst thing of all is the proliferation of banality posing as poetry, it
>killls the art.
>
>i get so tired of hearing people who are totally ignorant of the least bit
>of metrics (you have to know the rules in order to break them - that's what
>I do) or the provenance of words droning on in my ear. a friend of mine who
>is keen amateur singer, this just as a chorister in a provincial city's
>classical choir, has to do one full and one semi-rhearsal twice a week, plus
>other bits of practice, twice a week plus, just to be in the background in
>a performance. Most people I know who think they're poets look at you as if
>the boat's gone out if you say 'catalexis' or 'caesura' or even
>'enjambement' to them. Not to mention 'tonic' and sub-tonic' stress or , God
>help us, 'anacrusis'.
>
>One guy I know, who thinks he's a poet, told me recently he went on a course
>where he learnt about technique - it was called 'iambic pentameter'.
>
>Lord have mercy.
>
>Best
>
>Dave
>
>
>
--
M.J.Walker - no blog - no webpage - no idea
Nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. - Montaigne
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